Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Last weekend’s Berlin E-Prix double-header was one that the ABT CUPRA Formula E Team will never forget, after the Germans saved their best performance of the season so far for their home E-Prix.

Whilst Saturday’s race at the Tempelhof Airport Circuit was typically underwhelming for the side, with Nico Müller having finished eleventh with Robin Frijns in fourteenth, Sunday was the Kempten-based team’s time to shine.

Frijns and Müller both mastered Sunday’s wet qualifying session, with the heavens having opened not long before the session got underway. The challenging conditions worked perfectly in ABT CUPRA’s favour, with Frijns having claimed a shock pole position, with Müller in second. It meant the side secured a front row lock-out and their first points of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, with Frijns having been awarded three points for claiming pole.

Unfortunately for the team, Sunday’s race was dry, which resulted in them being unable to stay with the leaders. Frijns quickly tumbled down the order and finished seventeenth, whilst Müller managed to hold on for ninth, securing his first points of the season. All in all, it was an unbelievable weekend for ABT CUPRA; however, Team Principal Thomas Biermaier is aware that they still lack “the necessary pace in normal conditions”.

“We took a big step forward this weekend. The success in qualifying and the clean race into the top ten on Sunday are a nice reward and additional motivation for the whole team after months of hard work. Of course, the wet conditions played into our cards in qualifying and made this surprising result possible.

Roman Rusinov might be known for his prowess in LMP2 cars, but is now trying his hand at piloting a Can-Am Maverick X3. In mid-April, he and his G-Drive Racing team made their rally raid débuts at the Russian Rally-Raid Championship‘s Gold of Kagan Baja, where he finished eighth in the T3 category. The start was intended to help him prepare for the Silk Way Rally in July.

“I have wanted to try my hand at rally raids for a long time, so I am glad that G-Drive Racing has opened up new horizons,” said Rusinov. “The team is setting new goals and challenges both in terms of developing motorsport in the country and in terms of improving the performance of G-Drive fuel. Rally raids, like endurance races, are an excellent testing ground for fuel testing in the most extreme conditions.”

Rusinov was one of the top drivers in LMP2, winning the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship and 2018 European Le Mans Series titles in the class and scoring a pair of podiums at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. However, he and G-Drive Racing withdrew from the 2022 World Endurance Championship after he rejected the FIA’s policy enacted in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which stipulated Russian and Belarusian competitors must condemn the war and agree to compete without their countries’ emblems. The team had hoped to return to WEC for a single season to celebrate their ten-year anniversary.

With no international racing options, he returned to Russia and mainly participated in various motoring events while promoting G-Drive, a brand of fuel owned by Gazprom Neft. Gazprom, a state-owned energy producer, is also the title sponsor of rally raid truck powerhouse KAMAZ-master.

In March, he tested an SSV alongside Dakar Rally veteran and G-Drive ambassador Anastasiya Nifontova ahead of the Gold of Kagan. Nifontova will also race for G-Drive Racing at the Silk Way Rally.

For the first time since his rookie season in 2020, Brennan Poole will run a NASCAR Cup Series race as he enters Sunday’s Dover Motor Speedway event for Rick Ware Racing, driving the #15 Ford Mustang.

It will not be Poole’s first time driving the #15 as his lone campaign in the Cup Series came with the number for Premium Motorsports, who was absorbed by RWR during the 2020 season. He placed thirty-second in points with a best finish of ninth at Talladega in the fall.

After making just one national series start in 2021 in the Truck Series, he became an Xfinity Series part-timer. JD Motorsports signed him for the full 2023 Xfinity calendar, marking his return to being a weekly driver in the series after last doing so in 2016 and 2017. Nine races into the season, Poole sits twenty-sixth in points and is coming off a fifth-place finish at Talladega, his first top five in any national tier since a runner-up in the 2019 Charlotte Truck event.

J.J. Yeley has been the #15’s main driver in 2023 as he ran six of the first ten races, but is now focusing on the #51 following Cody Ware‘s suspension. Other drivers to pilot the #15 include Jenson Button, Todd Gilliland, and Riley Herbst; Herbst holds its best finish so far of tenth in the season-opening Daytona 500. The car is currently thirty-second in owner points.

James Vowles has admitted his time acting as Motorsport Strategy Director at the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team did not give him the full picture of how life would be as Team Principal.

Vowles left Mercedes at the end of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season to become Team Principal at Williams Racing, and he feels like he has jumped into the deep end by doing so as he did not know everything he would need to do.

Partly this is down to switching to a brand-new team after many years working for Mercedes across multiple roles, and although he learned a lot from Toto Wolff, the Team Principal of his former team, he knows now that the job involves a lot more than he realised it would.

“You migrate from knowing one thing for many, many years – remembering that it was 20-odd years that I was at the previous place,” Vowles said to Sky Sports F1.  “I had the fortune of doing strategy but then moving on to many of the other tasks that Toto and myself worked on, including strategy not just for the team but other organisations within Mercedes.

“It gave me a formation to this but clearly not the full picture of everything I’m going to expect here.  However, everything is exciting simply because you’re using skills that you’ve built previously and having to really explore the limits of what you’re aware of.

The BWT Alpine F1 Team has achieved FIA Three-Star Environmental Accreditation for both its factories in Enstone and Viry-Châtillon.

All FIA Formula 1 World Championship teams are working hard to improve their efficiency when it comes to energy use and carbon emissions, with the aim to improve sustainability within the sport and reduce any negative effects on the environment.

By achieving the Three-Star Accreditation, the FIA were satisfied that Alpine were managing to run both factories in the United Kingdom and in France efficiently, with its renewable energy sources playing a big part. 

They are also on top of their biowaste sorting, have removed the use of single use plastic cups, and reduced by ninety-five per cent the amount of solvents within their cleaning materials.

“We are pleased to announce our FIA Three-Star Environmental Accreditation,” said Otmar Szafnauer, the Team Principal at Alpine.  “It is a great step forward in our environmental roadmap.

The McLaren F1 Team has unveiled a new Driver Development Programme that will be overseen by former FIA Formula 1 World Championship racer and multiple 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Emanuele Pirro.

The aim of the programme is to support drivers through from karting up to McLaren’s teams in Formula 1, the NTT IndyCar Series and the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Pirro, who raced for the Benetton F1 Team and Scuderia Italia during his time in Formula 1 and was a former test driver for McLaren, has been tasked to oversee the programme, with the Italian delighted to be given the opportunity.

“I am thrilled by this assignment for several reasons,” Pirro said. “McLaren played a crucial role in my career by giving me the opportunity to earn an F1 drive and to elevate myself to a higher level by working alongside [Ayrton] Senna, [Alain] Prost and [Gerhard] Berger.

“Together with my team, my role will assist in creating a state-of-the-art programme, selecting the best possible drivers and providing them with all the tools they need to make the best use of their talent. Furthermore, embed them in the McLaren mission, vision and values and hopefully, have one of them progress to the F1 team.

After Toyota Hiluxes finished 1–2 in the Prologue and Stage #1 of the Sonora Rally, the Prodrive Hunters responded with a vengeance on Tuesday as all four occupied the top five in T1.

Guerlain Chicherit led much of the stage before Sébastien Loeb went on to set the fastest time of at 1:28:28. The Hilux of Stage #1 winner Nasser Al-Attiyah was the lone non-Hunter in the top five as he finished second and 2:45 back of Loeb, consequently losing the overall lead to him though the margin is only three seconds.

Brothers Marcos and Cristian Baumgart, W2RC newcomers who are racing Hunters for the first time, dramatically improved from their eighth and ninth in Stage #1 to respectively finish third and fourth. The duo chased down Yazeed Al-Rajhi before the latter’s brake problems forced him to stop and make repairs, upon which the Baumgarts capitalised before getting by Chicherit in the closing sector. Despite dropping so many positions, Chicherit was able to muster a fifth.

The top level of FIM also saw a shakeup as Daniel Sanders dominated RallyGP to take the overall lead from Stage #1 winner Tosha Schareina. The latter now trails by 1:15.

However, Sanders will be on his own for the rest of the rally as GasGas team-mate Sam Sunderland crashed at the twenty-fourth kilometre and hurt his knee and nose. Sunderland’s W2RC title defence has been plagued by miserable fortune that included breaking his shoulder just one stage into the Dakar Rally and his ankle days before the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.

Audi shared insight on the company’s preparation to enter FIA Formula 1 World Championship in 2026 with their presentation at Auto Shanghai, which showcased the future team’s bold launch livery. 

With the Chinese Grand Prix unable to move forward in 2023, Audi CEO Markus Duesmann was pleased to present the project to racing fans in China– one of the company’s most significant markets. 

“We are convinced that our Formula 1 commitment will strengthen Audi’s sporting focus. The racing series is continuously increasing its global reach, especially among young target groups and in our most important sales market: China.”

The factory team has made rapid progress on their hybrid power unit, according to Member of the Board of Management for Technical Development Oliver Hoffmann. The drivetrain is expected to run on the test bench before the year’s end and will serve as the foundation for the development of their car as they continue to update and expand their facilities at Neuburg an der Donau to Formula 1 standards. 

“The Audi Formula 1 project has really taken off in recent months. In the ongoing concept phase of the power unit, the foundation of our drivetrain for 2026 is being laid today. 

Last weekend’s Berlin E-Prix double-header is one that ABT CUPRA Formula E Team will never forget, with Nico Müller having claimed the team’s first top ten of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Heading into the Tempelhof Airport Circuit, ABT CUPRA were the only team not to have scored a point, an unwanted statistic they no longer possess. Whilst Saturday’s race was uneventful for Müller, the Swiss driver was unbelievable on Sunday, after qualifying on the front row. Sunday’s wet qualifying session worked perfectly in ABT CUPRA’s favour, with Robin Frijns having claimed a famous pole position.

With a ABT CUPRA front row lockout, Müller battled incredibly hard to keep himself either within the top ten, or within touching distance of it. By the end of what was a dry race, Müller crossed the line in ninth, to claim his first points of the season.

It was a “rollercoaster ride of emotions” for Müller in Berlin, with the Swiss driver having loved seeing “the happy faces” in the garage.

“This weekend was a bit of a rollercoaster ride of emotions: a tough Saturday was followed by a Sunday with a place on the front row of the grid and points in the race. It was nice and emotional to see the happy faces in the team when Robin and I came back into the pits after the successful qualifying. We knew the race was going to be tough, but we still made the best of it.”

TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team remain in the lead of the Constructors’ Championship; however, their advantage took a huge dent at their home weekend in Berlin.

The Berlin E-Prix was very mixed for the German manufacturer, who were unable to claim a podium in either race at the Tempelhof Airport Circuit. Saturday’s race was arguably the harder of the two for the team, after Pascal Wehrlein and António Félix da Costa qualified poorly. Wehrlein started fifteenth whilst Da Costa started nineteenth, meaning both drivers had a huge task ahead of them to claim any points.

To no surprise, both drivers did work their way into the top ten, with Wehrlein having incredibly finished sixth. Da Costa would’ve also finished in the top five had he not been hit late on by Jake Dennis, with the Portuguese driver having had nowhere to go. He was forced to retire as a result of the damage sustained, much to Team Principal Florian Modlinger‘s disappointment.

Whilst he was gutted to see Da Costa retire, Modlinger was impressed by both drivers performance, after labelling the race as “spectacular”.

“That was a spectacular first race at our home event with lots of thrills and spills,” Modlinger said on Saturday. “Our drivers concentrated on working their way up the field from their grid positions and they did a good job. António was in fourth place and on track for a very good result. But very unfortunately he was then knocked out of the race and couldn’t do a thing about it. That’s such a shame, he could’ve earned very important points.

Pascal Wehrlein remains as the championship leader in the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, despite having experienced a challenging home weekend at the Berlin E-Prix double-header.

Halfway through the season and Wehrlein narrowly remains on top, with the German having seen his lead slashed from twenty-four points to just four. It was a weekend where the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team driver had to be resilient and patient, with qualifying having once again been an issue. Wehrlein could only manage fifteenth on the grid for Saturday’s race at the Tempelhof Airport Circuit; however, in typical fashion he worked his way through the field to finish sixth.

Given where he started Saturday’s race, sixth was an excellent result; however, Wehrlein admitted once again that the team “definitely need to improve our qualifying performance”.

“At the end of the day we can be satisfied,” Wehrlein said after Saturday’s race. “I took off from P15 and ultimately scored important points for sixth place. We definitely need to improve our qualifying performance. Tomorrow we get another chance and we’ll do our very best to make the most of it.”  

Qualifying for Sunday’s race went significantly better for Wehrlein, with the German having qualified sixth in what was a wet session. The track dried ahead of the race, though, something which was expected to suit the Porsche driver. Wehrlein struggled to make ground in Sunday’s race, though, and had to settle for seventh, with him admitting after the race that he “missed opportunities”.

Last weekend’s Berlin E-Prix double-header was an emotional one for Maserati MSG Racing, after the Monte-Carlo-based team enjoyed their best weekend of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship by a country-mile.

This season has been unbelievably tough for Maserati, with the side having often shown strong pace, only to be outdone by nothing more than unimaginable bad luck. Whilst some of that bad luck was still around on Sunday at the Tempelhof Airport Circuit, Saturday was very much Maserati’s day and one that Team Principal James Rossiter hailed as “special”.

After Edoardo Mortara qualified eleventh and Maximilian Günther qualified eighth for the first race of the weekend, it looked set to be a positive Saturday for Maserati. Those beliefs were enhanced after Mortara worked his way from eleventh to first by the eleventh lap, before he fell to ninth by the end of the race. Günther on the other hand, drove a really smart race and timed his moves perfectly, including on Sébastian Buemi at the final corner of the race, to claim the team’s first podium of the season.

It was an emotional moment for the team and particuarly for Rossiter, given that it’s his first season as Team Principal. He labelled the race as a “rollercoaster” and explained how “immensely proud” he was of the whole team, who have worked tremendously hard this season.

“That was something else,” Rossiter said after the race on Saturday. “I’ve never been on a rollercoaster like that before, not even as a driver! What an incredible way to start our weekend in Berlin by scoring our first double points finish and our first podium of the season. Results like this one are special, and I’m immensely proud of everyone in the team. It comes from the hard work and dedication we put in every single day. Berlin has historically been a strong circuit for us, and after seeing some encouraging signs in practice, we were quietly optimistic.

Last weekend’s Berlin E-Prix double-header will likely be remembered by Maximilian Günther forever, with the German having claimed Maserati’s first podium in single-seater motorsport since five-time Formula 1 World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio raced for the Italians.

After having endured a disappointing season ahead of Berlin, Günther was clearly a man on a mission. The Maserati MSG Racing driver showed excellent pace throughout the weekend, with his moment of jubilation having come in Saturday’s race at the Tempelhof Airport Circuit. Günther started Saturday’s race from eighth after being the slowest loser in the Quarter-Finals; however, this had no impact on his podium chances.

The German drove very smartly all race whilst drama was unfolding around him, with the twenty-five year-old having overtaken Sébastian Buemi for third at the final corner of the race. Günther and the entire team erupted with joy as he crossed the line narrowly ahead of Buemi, after what has been a tough year so far for them in the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

“This is such an incredible feeling!” Günther said after finishing third on Saturday. “After the season we’ve had and the challenges we’ve faced – and now overcome – it feels so good to be on the podium. Achieving this at my home race, in Berlin, makes it an even more satisfying way to celebrate, and knowing that I’m the first driver since Fangio to finish on the podium for Maserati in single-seater motorsport is a great honour.

“The race was hard-fought throughout, and my battle with Seb at the end – knowing that so much was on the line – was intense. I’m so proud of everyone in the team for achieving this result, and with the benefit of a double-header, we will try to keep this momentum going.“

In news that’s sure to set pulses races in rallycross fans all across the continent, it’s race week for the first time in the 2023 FIA European Rallycross Championship. Here is your overview of what to expect this year.

Race Weekend Format

The most important rule change to be aware of is the return of a more familiar race weekend format. 2022 saw the introduction of a three-heat system, followed by a progression race, semi-final, and then final. The move proved largely unpopular, chiefly because it was designed to add excitement to an already scintillating series, and ultimately caused nothing but confusion. 2023 sees the return of a much more familiar weekend, but with a few changes to the points.

Each event will have four five lap heats, with the cars lined up 5 abreast on the start line. The top driver overall will be awarded 3 championship points, second receives 2, and third receives 1. The top twelve drivers move on to the semi-finals, with the top three drivers from each race moving on to the final. 20 points are up for grabs for the winner, followed by 16 for second, 13 for third, then down to 1 point for the driver who finishes 15th in the overall ranking from the heat races.

Calendar

The 2023 calendar is a veritable who’s who of classic rallycross tracks. The six rounds largely follow the parent series of the 2023 FIA World Rallycross Championship around Europe. Nyirád Racing Center, Hungary, is the exception, being a standalone event for the EuroRX competitors.

The season then hits a trio of legendary tracks, starting at Montalegre, Portugal on 3/4 June, followed by Hell, Norway two weeks later, and then the Magic Weekend at Höljes, Sweden on 1/2 July. After a short break, the series hits two returning favourites in the form of Mettet, Belgium on 5/6 August, before culminating at the legendary Estering, Germany, 19/20 August.

Jane Daniels stands tall as the top rider in the FIM Women’s Enduro World Championship, but this past week took her talents to a new discipline when she ran the Swank Rally in Tunisia.

Daniels won the Women’s Enduro World Championship in 2019, 2021, and 2022, and intends to go for a three-peat this year while also running the British Enduro Championship. In the meantime, she decided to try her hand at rally with factory backing from her enduro manufacturer Fantic, who maintains a rally programme. According to an interview with Enduro21 prior to the Swank Rally, the start came about when she was asked by Italian reporter Dario Agrati about the prospect of running the Dakar Rally, to which she only said was possible if given an opportunity as she and her father would “never be able to make these races from the back of our van.” After Agrati’s interview was published, the answer was more than enough for Fantic to propose adding it to her 2023 schedule.

Running over four stages on 17–21 April, the Swank Rally is mainly aimed at non-professional riders hoping to gain in the rally raid experience. While there exists the Adventure class for those not wanting to race competitively, Daniels took part in the Rally category to vie for ranking.

She finished just shy of the podium in fifth overall with a total time of 1:26:28. Of course, rookie mistakes were present such as missing two waypoints in Stage #1 and suffering a speeding penalty the following day, but she ran mistake-free on the third and fourth legs. The race was cut short on Stage #4 due to sandstorms.

“I can’t thank everyone enough for welcoming me into the Rally world this past week,” wrote Daniels on social media. “It has been a pleasure to share this experience with you all and thank you again for all the help and tips throughout the race!”